By now, as you've been moving along in this series, you have been meditating for about eight weeks.

Whether that has been daily or weekly doesn't matter,

you are here today, sitting down, taking a moment to be still. And that is often the most

difficult hurdle to overcome. Patch yourself on the back. When we talk about meditating, there is a common phrase that is shared about what it asks of us and what the action of meditation consists of.

It is effortless effort.

Effortless, much like a deep breath or sigh exhaled in relief, appreciation, or satisfaction

is a peaceful, nourishing place to rest, and a state of being to embody. Meditating is the act

of resting in awareness, resting in the present moment without engaging,

without doing anything, just observing. No judgment, no opinions, no decisions are being made.

Once we become comfortable resting in awareness, meditating in this case,

and we begin to then carry this mindfulness skill that we have learned into our daily life,

being mindful becomes a comfortable place to rest.

At first, however, we must exert effort to learn the skill of meditation.

But with consistent effort, as we begin to experience the ease, the comfort, and the calm,

less effort is needed, and it becomes an effortless practice, an effortless effort.

Why, you may be wondering, there is nothing for us to do except focus on our breathing and witness

our thoughts, simply watching our thoughts. And when we observe that we are engaging with our

thoughts, that is when we step back and start to witness again instead of engaging. Engaging

requires effort. And we are learning the skill of choosing when to engage and when not to. Meditation is our practice ground,

our gym of practicing to strengthen that skill. It's more of a controlled environment if we look

at it through that lens because we are simply telling ourselves, I'm going to sit

and I'm going to breathe. And that is it. Effortless effort. Let's begin. Begin to breathe naturally.

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